Ryan & Emily CONFRONT Brian Stelter On Biden Media FAILURE

Brian Stelter we are joined Now by Brian stelter special correspondent for Vanity Fair and also the author of a very provocative and interesting new oped for Vox we can put this up on the screen that was had a again a very provocative headline it was just did the media botch the Biden age story we're going to get into all of that with Brian in just a moment but Brian first of all thanks for joining the show yeah great to be here thanks yeah so I just want to start off with a question that I will preface by saying is being asked in total good faith and is Maybe a little adversarial but uh you know you write in this the national media wasn't dodging the story uh you say there's this third option that the story should have been tougher the volume should have been louder you say I was part of the problem I appeared on MSNBC and said that Biden's age could decide the election quote if the media obsesses over it and ignores Trump's faults back in the early Trump Administration there was this conversation raging about the 25th Amendment and the Anonymous New York Times oped and and you platformed that conversation gave it a decent bit of oxygen on your show asked if Trump was well and all of that so my question based on this is the story should have been tougher the volume should have been louder the quote from the Vox oped why why wasn't it why was the volume on the Trump stories much louder um than the volume was on the Biden story it's just given the obvious sort of mental uh diminishment that we'd been seeing from Joe Biden I think this has a lot to do with who the actors are in any given story or scenario and right right now in the Biden Story the main actors are not journalists they are democratic lawmakers Democratic activists uh Democratic um partisan commentators but you know people who are clearly on the Democratic side who are making this a a major story there's a crisis around Biden not because of the media per se but because of people in his own party who want him out I would say there were elements of that as well in the Trump years uh there were Republicans there were Anonymous Trump officials AIDS all raising questions about Trump's Fitness so I don't think the the media was driving either of those narratives but obviously because all of this becomes it's all mediated through the media it's all covered by television networks and streamers and columnists it it always looks like a media creation when it's not does does that make any sense yeah I see what you're saying it's not a full answer but I think that's part of the the background here but then to your broader point about Biden's the coverage of Biden I say it wasn't ignored because the Wall Street Journal the New York Times Washington Post were doing really strong stories about how he was getting older he was getting slower AIDS were noticing he was slipping however it feels to me like those dots weren't always connected like they were treated as and honestly that that was my mistake that was my mistake and I'm just a you know freelancer now who just watches TV and and and chats with people like you but what I made the mistake of thinking these were all isolated episodes uh and not connecting the dots um I think a lot of people myself included gave the benefit of the doubt to the White House when maybe we shouldn't have and I guess it's a sign of what we kind of already knew that like the take the New York Times for instance um and I'm curious for your take as a as a watcher and somebody who's covered the New York Times for decades now uh they have like a switch has F flipped like it seems like inside the New York Times they're like we're getting this guy out like and it seems like all hands on deck you know the news side is you know calling donors and and calling politicians and writing and elevating uh comments from Democrats who are uh calling for him to step aside and the opinion side both the editorializing directly from the you know the the New York Times like the unnamed editorial board whatever that is uh is very very strong and then also the columns that they're elevating like James Carville the same time James Carville calling from the drop out and have an open convention that's all newsworthy um you you've had some kind of blue Maga Democrats who said well why won't the New York Times call for Trump to drop out it's like well cuz it's it just kind of elevat something we all understand that nobody nobody on the Republican side would care if the New York Times does that but on the Democratic side they do it it kind of solidifies our understanding that it's part of the kind it's become really part of the democratic ecosystem hasn't it in a way that maybe it wasn't 10 20 years ago like if the New York Times would have called on a republican to drop out 20 years ago that would have actually mattered in a way that I think it wouldn't matter today is that is that right um I mean look I worked in the New York Times uh from 2007 2013 I always knew back then and I still know today that The Newsroom is so separate from the editorial Pages they work on different floors in the building there is no coordination you know all of that is is you know true um so 20 years ago if the editorial pages that called for Republican to step down I don't think it would have registered that much to be honest um it depends on the race depends on the context uh also we lived in a completely different political environment I mean completely different we were not ruled by an American gerontocracy these elderly men that run the government that that most people are tired of I mean that's that's one of the themes I think of your program that I really appreciate people of all ages but especially people under 65 are desperate for younger leadership and that's to me the bigger story of Biden's age right now it's not really about Biden is what it is about Biden obviously whether he's fit for office but it's much bigger than Biden this is about Trump and the Supreme Court and elderly members of Congress they won't give up their post this is a big story and so when you say the New York Times seems to be flip to switch I understand why it feels that way about Biden but I don't think that's actually how it works inside the New York Times Newsroom I think the way it works is they see there's a big story developing people that were in denial about Biden's age are no longer in denial the Democratic party many leaders want him out this is an emergency and a lot of people are pretending like it's not in public but they're saying it's an emergency in private so I view the New York Times as just trying to cover a massive story in front of itself one of the things you wrote about in the Vox uped is that uh people in the White House Press Corp for example were recalling stories of being harassed and hared by the Biden White House the Biden campaign for reporting Peter Baker Ezra Klein uh and I'm sure Brian you've encountered some of this just over the course of the last couple of weeks um just in having some of these conversations openly yeah does that mean that the media in some way was overly responsive uh because they were still publishing stories I think that's true but uh were they sort of responding to that bullying by being bullied by the White House what's your sense of how they responded to that uh I I think it's complex I think it varies I I do think there are probably some occasions where the White House was able to water down stories dramatically they were able to dilute stories by for example providing half a dozen Aids on the phone on the record all to attest to Biden's Fitness I mean this is typical journalism 101 and PR 101 if if you're up against a journalist writing a tough story you might try to change the narrative or or you know weaken the narrative by providing well shall we say counterpoints right and so the Biden Administration was providing counterpoints they were putting Administration officials on the record to say he's sharp as attack he's stronger than all of us to the point where it became kind of a joke among the reporters uh this idea that all the Biden AIDS all the younger AIDS insist that Biden is faster and and better than them you know people see through this to some degree especially now um but but you know I do think that the the The Bullying or the the really aggressive press efforts you know we'd be we'd be ridiculous not to think it had some impact and and by the way there's a connection there to the Trump years right how did the the Trump Administration began by by lying about crowd size it created antagonism between the Press Corps and the President right away right on the very first weekend the Biden relationship with the Press has been different uh he's kept the Press at a distance but has been more outwardly respectful and do I think that's make that makes a difference in how he's been treated or covered yes probably right um there's I don't want to pretend otherwise right Emily yeah and there's also been an relationship between the White House some kind of blue Maga you could call them blue Maga White House influencers and then a Kind of Blue Maga base that is out there on social media that is going after we have to call it blue Maga is what should we call is it blue andon is that what it is blon yeah that's what people call that's even worse blon's even worse but it is it is wild out there Ryan it is right I you've been probably on the receiving end you you as a as a public figure you're of course like it's nothing new to get criticism Etc but what's what's it been like how how has it been different uh or has it been different it has yes descri describe the difference because I've noticed it too so so so number one let's go back to the night of the debate um let's actually let's go back a little bit further remember the State of the Union Address remember how charged and energetic and defiant Biden was that night he outperformed almost every expectation uh I I my personal theory is that he read his own reviews and he became maybe even too confident in his abilities going forward because he had a breakthrough night and for a lot of people who might have been worried about his age or his health or they might have relaxed a little bit um thankfully reporters of the Wall Street Journal didn't they found some great information and publish it in early June but my point is there were moments earlier this year that might have led people into a sense of complacency when it comes to Biden's ability to do the job and to campaign more importantly to campaign for president then the debate happens and I was uh on a Canadian television network right afterward and I said this is you know this is an emergency I didn't use the word emergency but I said there are many Democrats who now want to replace him this is an unprecedented moment and the anchor literally says to me Brian I've I've watched you for years I've never heard you talk this way and I came off the air and I wondered was I too strong like did I go too far is this really that bad for Biden but then I go watch CNN and MSNBC and fox and everybody you know there was a consensus immediately and and we should not pretend otherwise like this was a very clear um this was a nonpartisan conclusion right that that there was something really troubling about Biden's behavior on stage so with that in mind the response from Pro Biden social media followers just seems as if it comes from a different planet it just seems as if it's happening from Earth too and as you know I've talked a lot about Earth too in relation to Trump fans uh you know no nobody who who's ever heard of um I mean look if if you know one thing about my career at CNN uh it was that I was very tough and critical of President Trump and the the prot Trump media that's basically my brand I wish you know I think it's more complicated but you know if you had to summarize me in a sentence you'd say yeah stelter the guy that was always calling out Trump and so to have all of these uh deep blue liberal social media fans pretending as if I am some magga Die Hard some Trump back it is just it has been a weird time Ryan I mean you've seen it online too it's it's a weird Mo and and so so I think we should go a little deeper what's causing that behavior like where's that coming from right I think it's coming out of fear I think it's it's mostly out of fear that Trump is going to return that Biden's going to lose and Trump's going to return and so you have a lot of these Biden die hards who are desperate to shut down the conversation about their candidate and do you looking back feel The Benefit of the Doubt like maybe that fear ever influenced the way that you covered the Trump administration because I'm fascinated by this question of the benefit of the doubt that you mentioned that like maybe it was giving the benefit of the out to the Biden Administration when they talked about his health he had some good moments he looked okay but then uh you know for example your response to the hunter Biden laptop story this is a classic example of the right-wing media machine that's a quote um quote from maybe 20120 there's still a lot we don't know about the president's time ties with Russia period and we could get into all of this we don't need to get into all of this but I genuinely am interested in that question the benefit of the doubt because I do feel like that's the rub between a lot of media critics like myself and people in the media um and I know you even in the Box uped sort of take issue in an interesting way with what we describe as the media what we Define as the media because we're all in our bubbles right now but but personally like as you think about it why do you think it is that you gave the benefit of the doubt there um but not to and and maybe to the Biden campaign with the hunter Biden laptop story too and took that claim of disinformation very seriously well I think number one the state of the union is an example of why some people were inclined to give Biden the benefit of the doubt that on the moments where there was a lot of uh scrutiny about how he was going to perform was he up for the task he then outperformed and I think in a there is a narrative now in the right-wing media that says haha we told you so we told you Biden was scile that conveniently forgets all the moments where he did outperform all the moments where he was energetic where he did uh you know s it to the Republicans achieved by partisanship Etc um but I do think the benefit of the doubt thing is real it's just a theory of mine I I hope maybe others dis agree I want to hear it I would also differentiate between individual members of the media and the media r large as a blob right because big newsrooms exist in order to make sure benefit of that doesn't happen make sure that neutrality Independence is achieved make sure that there isn't bias in the coverage I know you think they often come up short and maybe they do but you know newsrooms are structured in order to push all of that stuff out and ensure that uh people in power are being held accountable I just think on a more personal individual level when you think about certain columnists and commentators and you know Talking Heads uh Biden has he's been respected and to some extent every you know the President should be respected I I I feel like I respected president Trump in the at certain points for example when he had Co and there was a real concern about the American president's Health right well that's where we are again now real deep profound concern about the American president's health and these uh these Biden die hards who think the media is out to get him they're they're totally missing what's actually happening which is that journalists are trying to scratch scratch scratch as hard as we can to figure out what's really going on in this white house which increasingly you know there's increasing questions about whether there was a cover up and we say that not to uh to say officially there was a cover up but it has to it's a question that has to be asked it's it's a question that has to be addressed and is is there much uh so the the the Overdetermined reporters that you spoke with doing the reporting here what what is the reflection what do they think they could have done differently so that this wouldn't have happened or do they think that this was just structurally they were just bound this was just overdetermined what do you mean overdetermined what do you mean like that the media is what it is the then if the if the white if the White House is going to kind of cover up the situation and snow them with a bunch of on the record people saying that you know Joe Biden can outrun every 20-year-old intern in in the white house they don't have interns anymore for reasons that we know they rename them um you know that that facing those those structures of like on the and you know the Wall Street Journal article is an excellent example like after that story came out you had the entire Democratic apparatus pushing back on them saying this is flawed and faulty reporting you had a bunch of democratic electeds who came out and said I gave them an on the record quote and we didn't and they didn't use it this is outrageous Patty Murray who now wants him to drop out yeah uh it's outrageous that they didn't use these on the record quotes and then you'd have all the Rachel vinman of the world regurgitating that saying that this is flawed journalism how on Earth could they not quote on the it's clear that they're biased and the reporters are like because they were lying and because and also we included extensive quotes from The White House you know making their case we but we don't have room for every lying Democrat who's going to go on the record and say that yeah he can he can outrun me um so given given those structural problems that that that that individual reporters face do they feel like they they screwed up and they could have done this differently and they regret it or do they feel like they're just up against a force that they can't overcome well I think there's a lot of points of view I I'm really interested in the point of view that several reporters shared with me that the coverage should have become more aggressive when Biden decided to run for re-election because all of a sudden it wasn't about his performance for one more year it was about five more years and I think that there's a lot of Merit to that argument and then again you know look at the Wall Street Journal story in June that is an example of more aggressive coverage once he was running for re-election I also think we're talking about a story that's inherently complex and uncomfortable it's about someone getting older many of us have experienced this with a parent or a grandparent we all have lived experience here which does you know it's a relevant part of the story right people don't want to live in a gerontocracy and I think that came through in the news coverage in the last couple years the polls have been clear all along that Americans believed Biden was too old uh to serve for another four years uh and Trump as well for that matter Americans don't want these two choices right I think that has come through in the coverage we've heard about double haters but I think here's the challenge with covering aging it's not an immediate flood and news outlets are really good at covering floods like I helped cover floods for CNN you know it's an emergency it's happening immediately you can see it happening in real time it's a lot harder to cover a drip drip drip drip drip and isn't this a drip drip story where Biden is you know gradually declining that's at least what it appears from from you know many people's eyes I went in solom in Philadelphia two years ago two summers ago that democracy speech people now remember it as the one with the the blood red background that looked really ear uh but it was this fantastic speak speech at independent Independence Hall he's a very different person than he was two years ago when he delivered that speech and uh but it's been drip drip drip and I think drip drip drip is hard for it's inherently harder for journalists to cover I say that not to let them off the hook but just to recognize this is a this is a tough it's a it's a tough story it's a lot harder than pointing out when President Trump was lying on Twitter which as you know Emily I loved to do that or calling out his typos it's really easy to to call out the typos yeah uh there were many of them and there continued to be many of them uh the cheap fake uh sort of trend is one thing I also want to ask about because it's you know it's it's there is Cheap Fake genuinely an interesting question here you tweeted a Washington Post article about um it was like cheap Pig video Biden videos in Rapture right-wing media but deeply mislead that's the post headline U and I think this is a Glenn Kesler uh yeah it's a glen kler Adriano Sero analysis of the videos from the G7 Summit uh and there was some deceptive editing of those but what's interesting is it gets back into this sort of sub subjective question of was the so many people in the media really did take that cheap fake line almost straight from the White House was the White House response and say use it to kind of Define that line of attack from the right as almost entirely one of cheap fakes it it was all you know bad faith rather than there was something real there which you have uh since said you think there are real problems in these videos so do you think the media was overly credulous was overly willing again to give the benefit of the doubt to the White House with the cheap fake line uh instead of like for me the main story there as a journalist is that Joe Biden often looks like he's zoning out that he's having trouble there people at the G7 telling media Outlets uh the New York Post had a story about this that he didn't seem well that's the headline story for me not that the RNC is doing partisan hackery and putting out you know potentially cheap fake videos that's that's a total secondary story to me but the media elevated it to be ahe of the story at the time about Biden's Health itself um well yes except I think it depends on who and what we mean by media right as always uh I think if you were listening to Fox's coverage of Biden in recent months you might feel better informed right now than if you were reading liberal blogs and that's that's a that's a problem right at the same time I think some of the videos Fox was showing were misleading not all of them some of them and so it's complicated uh some were cheap fakes and some were legitimate and they they were all and yes it is true the White House I think tried to claim all of them were BS right I was texting with the White House eight at the time I was hearing that storyline uh that that this is this is BS uh when when I think glun Kessler does a fact check he's doing something narrow but um but it does then create this broader perception that you you should just ignore I mean what you're Hing at was really interesting it's like the implication then is just don't pay attention to this because it's all just noise right and that attitude benefited Biden for a while right right and why not fact check the White House when they say uh this other video is just a cheap fake when it's not a cheap fake why not do a fact check of that instead of the fact check of the RNC the focus to me just seemed to be more of that kind of benefit of the doubt before the debate and then the debate through that all at the window I but I think it depends on the constituency as well though I now see a whole lot of progressives who want the media to be Democratic activists who who are demanding that the media perform the role of democratic lawmakers and I think there's oftentimes this this mixup about what the role of the the journalist should be versus an activist versus a partisan commentator versus a lawmaker like the media's not coming to the rescue right not against Biden and not against Trump and I I think there's a lot of distortion of that happening right now among desperate Democrats who are freaking out about Trump uh Poss probably winning although some people would argue the media is intentionally coming to the rescue now that they've seen the polling numbers I just but isn't doesn't that imply conspiracy like doesn't it isn't that yeah or it's you know that we played for your former colleague Don Lemon when he was on the show this clip of num Chomsky actually it was a it was a brilliant this yeah he was he's asking a journalist he's saying you know essentially they don't need to there doesn't have to be a conspiracy it's more just that you're from the same sort of social places economic socioeconomic status you sort of run in the same circles and share a lot of the worldviews so there doesn't have to be a conspiracy so much as you know it's just most people live in Manhattan DC and think alike live similar lives and uh come out on these things with a similar perspective I I understand that critique I think it's important to unpack that critique I it's also what What's the phrase there's some phrase in political science for this or like it's self-sealing or it's imp you can't how how do you unpro how do you disprove it right uh because if I if I try to talk against that talking point then I sound like I I I must I must just um I don't see it in front of myself here I mean here's what I know about myself right I was a kid from a lower middle class background in Maryland who went to a state school joined the New York Times got to CNN like probably not a typical path into CNN but it is true that once you're inside a giant national news organization you are aware that uh you know that lots of people are watching that there's a certain you know vibe that comes from the news coverage certain stories are considered breaking news that's true but I don't think that um I within that reality though I think you do have incredible diversity at these news news organizations and that's how it should be and and you need that diversity um but you know I don't know I'm I'm not as smart as gome none of us are now well now I'm curious that that was my path too though we were we were kind of looking up maybe at lower middle but also Maryland where and also state school in Maryland where where in Maryland just curious I grew I grew up in Damascus in Northern mg County and then I went to talson University and you know what I appreciate about that the story that I you know we all tell a story about ourselves right what our own narrative is what I like about my narrative if I have one is that I went through side doors I didn't go through the front door right I didn't submit a resume uh I I was able to get to the New York Times through a Blog by blogging and then I was got to the CNN through my work at the times and so I like that those paths exist in a way they didn't exist 30 years ago before the internet because I think it does bring in different kinds of people into newsrooms and that can be hopefully advantageous to the media coverage well cool I mean it's been good to talk with you you got anything else Emily just appreciate the conversation thanks Brian cool thanks guys hey if you liked that video don't forget to hit the like button and subscribe to Breaking points if you want to see the rest of counterpoints go to breakingpoints doccom to become a premium member and get the full uncut show every morning in your inbox and on Spotify